Mail Carrier Preschool Theme

Today we talked about Mail Carriers!

Confessions of a Homeschooler has a Mail Carrier Unit that includes the hat above, the activities pictured below and some others as well.

 We watched this video that describes what a typical day for a mail carrier could be like and issues that they may have to deal with.  This topic is also a nice time to talk about writing letters, your address, and what it takes to mail a letter.

My son helped write a letter for someone and put it in the envelope.  Then when it was stamped and ready to go he dropped it in our mail drop box.  

My son hasn't felt so great the last few days so even though there is a lot more you could do with this fun theme I kept it basic and he had a good time.  Another idea I think is fun is to is to have children sort mail and set up a little post office.  They could sort letters by color or shape or number. 

Family Preschool Theme

Today we talked about one of my the best things in the world, family.

 I helped my son go through pictures of our family members and pick some out to make a collage with.  He enjoyed gluing the pictures onto the small poster board we had and then we hung it in his room.  As we did this we talked about the different members of our family and how each family is different.  Some families have lots of kids, some don't have any, some only live with one parent, some are mostly boys (like ours), some our mostly girls, and so on.

The Little Critter books are a great place to look into books about families.  We read a couple of the ones we own.

We also sang a lot of songs.  Our church's Children's Songbook includes lots of songs about family.  They learned a new song at church this year called, "The Family is of God" and we enjoyed singing that together.  My son knows the chorus pretty well and I helped him on the verses.

Last year we made a family tree and did some other family activities as well.  You can check it out here.

Last night we did this little family craft to hang up for Thanksgiving time.  It is a nice time of year to focus on being thankful for our families.

Monster Preschool Theme

Today we had fun talking about monsters!

Here are some favorite monster type books that we own and enjoyed reading.

"Go Away Big Green Monster!" is a fun book.  Making Learning Fun has great activities that go along with this book.  

"One Hungry Monster" is a great counting book.  A few years ago I made some different activities myself to use with my boys.  I don't have them available, but I copied the monsters from the book and used them as I wanted.  You can find out more about it in my 2010 post here.

Another book that is fun to read when talking about monsters is "Where The Wild Things Are".   Making Learning Fun has great activity ideas to go with this book as well.

There are some really fun printable packs to go with monsters.  3 Dinosaurs has a huge pack with lots of great activities to go with monsters.  I like her packs because she has easier stuff for tots and harder things for kids around kindergarten age.

 Little Monkey Printables has a Not So Scary Monster pack filled with great activities as well.

If you are looking for some math activities check out this blog post that has links to 25 math ideas.

Some of our favorite monster movies are "Monsters Inc" and "Monsters University".  Check out Monster Universities home page for fun ideas.

 My son wanted to make another Mike Wazowski paper plate monster like last year.  He was more involved with the process this year aside from just gluing on the pieces I had cut out.  It is fun to watch kids grow and learn.  Of course, he had to demonstrate his monster face.

Scarecrow Preschool Theme

Today we focused on talking about scarecrows.  The book we read yesterday had a scarecrow at the end so it is nice to do the two themes back to back or joined together.

 There are several fall packs that you can find for free to print off.

Autumn Themed ABC Printable Pack

Scarecrow Tot Pack

Fall Pack

Scarecrow Freebie Activities

 I made these scarecrow cards many years ago.  I wrote the body part that the arrow is pointing at on the card.  Have your child point to each body part on their own body with each card.

 This is a fun little scarecrow book called Scarecrow Loves Fall.

 We had a great time doing some scarecrow themed songs and finger plays.  You can see many ideas to use at this website.

My son also enjoyed making a shape scarecrow.  I had many shapes cut out and he chose which ones he wanted to use to build his own little scarecrow.

You can also check out my 2012 post and my 2013 post about scarecrows.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

Today we read "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything".  This is a fun book to read a loud and have fun with.

Making Learning Fun is the best resource I have found for this book.  There are flannel board pieces like above and activities like the ones pictured below, plus more.

 Here is my son's very own scarecrow.  He actually colored some which is great considering he tries to avoid coloring as much as possible!

 This is a free printable that is a fun way to review the book.

This Roll a Scarecrow is a fun game to play a long with this story.

You can see previous posts about this book in the links below: 

2011

2012

2013

Leaf Preschool Theme

 Leaves are a fun topic this time of year with them changing colors and falling off the tree!

We always enjoy going out and collecting leaves when we have this theme.  Here is our collection this year.  It is fun to sort them in many different ways; size, shape, color, and so on.

We also enjoy doing leaf rubbings.  My son did a good job all by himself this year.  If you put a leaf under the paper and use a crayon you can get this fun look.

 There are also several sources that have fun leaf activities.  Making Learning Fun has leaf and Fall activities like this counting one below.

 There are several free printable packs worth checking out.  I have used them all throughout the years.

3 Dinosaurs Leaves Pack

This Reading Mama Fall Pre-K Pack

A Teaching Mommy Leaves Pack

Homeschool Creations Fun Fall Printables

My son wanted to make little leaf men so he glued googly eyes on some of his leaves and gave them mouths with a marker.

 For more ideas from my previous Leaf Themes you can check out the links below.

2013

2012

 2011

2010

Pumpkins Preschool Theme!

My favorite Fall Theme is pumpkins!

We went to a pumpkin patch as a family last night so we were all ready to talk about pumpkins the rest of the week.  My older children will be out of school Thursday and Friday so we won't have formal preschool then, but we will be painting our pumpkins.

 Here is my son at the pumpkin patch.  He found a cute little pumpkin that he thought looked just the right size for him.

We measure the pumpkin in all the ways we could think of.  How tall it was, how wide, how long the stem was, and so on.

 My son wanted to roll the pumpkin across the kitchen floor and measure how far it rolled so we did that too.  :)

We love to do "Five Little Pumpkins".  I usually do it once with these visuals and then again and have them do the finger actions and roll around like a pumpkin at the end.

 We talked about the life cycle of a pumpkin using sequencing cards.  I have not been able to locate the link I found these cards at years ago, but this is a fun idea we actually did last year with the pumpkin life cycle.

 There are some really great Pumpkin Packs out there.  Here are a few Confessions of a Homeschooler's Pumpkin Printable Pack.

 1+1+1=1 and  A Teaching Mommy has a pumpkin printable pack.and  also have Pumpkin Printables.

 Lawteedah has a Halloween Kit with pumpkin printables.

3 Dinosaurs also has a free pumpkin printable pack.

My son also enjoys visiting Starfall's website and building his own pumpkin. We also watched this Super Why clip that shows how to spell "pumpkin".

You can check our more ideas from previous years.

2010

2011

2012

2013

 (there are three parts for 2013 year so be sure to check out the links after this post)

Ghost Preschool Theme

Today we talked about ghosts.  Sometimes you have to embrace the time of year it is and do silly little themes like this just for fun.

 Three Ghost Friends is hand down the number one place to go for all your ghosting activities.  Seriously, it is awesome.  Here are just a couple of the awesome activities in the picture below.  Dressing up your ghost in costumes and ghost shape matching.

I also told my son the story of the "Five Little Ghosts"  they disobey their mother and eat things that aren't white and turn different colors.  Here is one version of the story.

My son traced around a ghost template and made eyes and a mouth with a pen.  I helped him a little with the cutting around of the ghost.  We poke a small hole on the top and put some fishing line through it and we now have a little ghost hanging up.  We used some vellum since it is sturdy, see through, and I had some on hand.  You could use tracing paper or regular white paper.  My son does good imitations of things, doesn't he?  ;)

You can check out our ghost theme from 2012 that I did with my middle son.

You can also check out what we did for our ghost theme in 2013.